The ThriceWrought Challenge
by Ancalime Erendis
Summary: COMPLETE! A parody of three of my favorite fanfic challenges. Details Harry's parental origins, Trelawney's mental origins, and Voldemort's ultimate downfall. Rating for Hannah Abbott's mouth.
1. A Charming Failure

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DISCLAIMER: Time and canon, not to mention logic, have very little place in this story. Basic mechanics of Rowling's universe are obeyed; everything else is intentionally out of keeping, the better to emphasize the parody.

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Chapter 1: A Charming Failure

Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, had moments in which he in no way resembled his father. Unbeknownst to him, or indeed to pretty much anyone other than Dumbledore, most of his moments were such. It was, however, too good a secret to remain hidden forever, and one day it made itself known in rather an abrupt manner and at quite an inconvenient time.

It began slowly, with Ron noticing that Harry's eyes had gone from green to hazel. This was easily written off as the aftereffect of a particularly bad reaction to a Skiving Snackbox that had allowed Ron to miss History of Magic, though, and neither Harry nor his friends thought much about it.

Then in Potions, Hermione noticed that, while Harry's hair was still black, it had gone suddenly frizzy. She might have written it off as something in his potion, but no one else had the same problem. Before she could say anything, however, there was a loud explosion not from a cauldron, and when the smoke cleared, she found Harry replaced by a boy who looked very much like a young Snape with hazel eyes and an Afro.

There was, quite understandably, a loud, confused reaction from the class, and once Snape restored order, everyone, especially the Potions master, still stared.

The boy beside Hermione looked a touch confused by it all. "What'd I do?" he asked. "Why are you all staring at me?" He turned to Ron and raised his eyebrows.

Ron went pale. "You've got his scar!" he whispered, then fainted dead away, taking his stool and cauldron with him.

"H-Harry?" Hermione said.

The boy turned to her. "Yeah?"

"You look…different."

"That's quite enough!" Snape snapped. "All of you, return to your potions. Potter, stay after class."

Harry, to his credit, was as confused as everyone else, but after helping Ron up, he did as he was told and returned to his potion.

After class, when all of his classmates went to Transfiguration and wherever it was that the Slytherins went, Harry walked to the front of the room to face Snape. The Potions master looked sharply at him for a moment, as if he had given some offense, then stormed out of the room and beckoned for Harry to follow.

They ended up in Dumbledore's office, where the headmaster went pale and had to sit down after seeing Harry. "Well," he said, "this wasn't entirely expected."

Snape glared at him. "I specified a _good_ family, Albus," he growled. "Which part of that escaped you?"

"The Potters were a good family," Dumbledore replied faintly.

"James Potter was one of the worst scalawags to infest the face of the earth!" Snape spat.

Dumbledore smirked. "Did you just say 'scalawag'?"

"Shut up," Snape grumbled irritably.

"Excuse me," Harry piped up. "What exactly is going on?"

Snape snatched up a mirror from Dumbledore's desk, where it had lain conveniently for narrative purposes. "Look," he ordered, handing over the plot contrivance.

Harry obediently held up the mirror, screamed, and fainted.

"Blessed with my looks," Snape commented, retrieving the mirror. "So now what?"

Dumbledore shrugged. "Well, I suppose he ought to be told," he answered. "It seems rather pointless to let him guess."

"The whole school is guessing right now," Snape told him. "His appearance charm blew up in Double Potions."

"That must have been irksome," Dumbledore commented off-handedly. "Yes, I suppose he'll have to be told, at least about you."

"Yes," Snape muttered darkly. "Better to leave _her_ entirely out of it."

"At least her name," Dumbledore agreed.

They had, as it happened, forgotten entirely about Harry, who now revived and got to his feet unassisted. "Did anyone see the lorry that hit me?" he asked groggily.

"Blessed with his mother's brain," Snape said resentfully.

"He'll turn out better," Dumbledore assured him, then turned to Harry. "Now Harry," he continued. "I have a hard truth to break to you, which the reader has probably already figured out but which, for reasons of plot development, I must make plain in the dialogue."

Harry blinked. "Um, okay."

"Professor Snape is your father."

Harry went pale, then backed all the way to the wall. Frightened eyes turned to Snape, but he managed to keep his voice steady. "I'll never join you!" he declared. "Never! Not even if you cut off my hand!"

Snape exchanged perplexed looks with Dumbledore. "Why the hell would I want to cut off your hand?!" he demanded.

"'Cause that's how it works!" Harry yelled.

"Still think he'll turn out better?" Snape asked in an undertone.

"He's just taking it a bit hard, that's all," Dumbledore said soothingly. He looked back to Harry. "This is understandably hard for you, but it is nevertheless true, and I think it's time that you and Professor Snape put aside your differences and come to an understanding." He looked sharply at Snape. "_Right_, Severus?"

Snape rolled his eyes and sighed. "Sure."

"Why don't you shake on it?" Dumbledore suggested.

Snape gave him a resentful look, but he offered his hand to Harry.

"**_Get away from me, you lazy-eyed psycho!"_** Harry screamed.

Dumbledore sighed. "I can see we have a lot of work to do."

"Especially if you want to explain the rest of it to the reader through dialogue rather than narrative," Snape agreed.

Harry just huddled on the floor, whimpering.


	2. Turning Time

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Chapter 2: Turning Time

After an hour of trying several times to walk past Harry and get to the door so that he could leave, and weathering Harry's screaming of oddities and obscenities every time, Snape was forced to Stun him and take him to Madame Pomfrey. She very heavily sedated Harry and offered to be a part of the necessary conversation that would explain to the reader (at least partially) what the hell was going on, but Snape declined. Since he preferred the company of his own thoughts, the writer said to hell with it, sent him on a walk through the rose garden, and decided to explain things through the narrative after all.

Snape's wife had very literally popped up out of nowhere one day near the end of his seventh year and lectured him in no uncertain terms on the topic of reproduction. She was specifically adamant that he never engage in it. He had found her odd even then, for obvious reasons, and also for the fact that her brown hair looked as if it had been styled in a wind tunnel.

He would probably have walked away from the odd woman, never to see her again, except that two rather unfortunate things happened. First, she followed him back to school, loudly lecturing him the whole way, and secondly, the Marriage Law of 1976 passed. It turned out, as Dumbledore learned from a long conversation with the girl, that she was a Muggle-born witch, and by the provisions of the law, she was required to be married off to a pureblood wizard at the earliest opportunity.

By some sick twist of fate, Snape was the only one available at Hogwarts, so to the disgust of both Snape and the girl, they were married as soon as Severus graduated. His new wife actually seemed to take some comfort in it, though, for it meant that she had some control over whether or not he ever produced offspring. She took a birth control potion regularly, and she kept it hidden and refused to tell him where it was. Snape had not really pursued it because he had pretty much resolved by the end of their honeymoon that there was no one with whom he wanted to have children less.

That had been all well and good until a bizarre potions accident turned their home upside-down. Something went very wrong with one of Snape's brews, causing it to send out a repulsive-smelling fume that also somehow caused Snape and his wife to switch bodies. It was several weeks before he could figure out the counter-potion, and somewhere in there, his wife…er, he…well, the female body, at any rate—became pregnant. He was so out of his element anyway that he wasn't aware of what the telltale signs meant, so when they switched back, his wife had quite the nasty shock.

As a result of their switch, however, the two had gained a better understanding of one another and actually managed to fall in love. He convinced her to keep the baby, and all was well until—

Snape broke off his reflection to blast a large rose bush (betcha forgot he was out for a stroll in the rose garden, didn't ya). _Then_, he thought bitterly, along had come Sirius Black.

His wife apparently knew Black from somewhere, and when the former Marauder had dropped by uninvited one day, she was only too happy to renew the acquaintance. Black didn't seem to remember _her_, but he also wasn't the type to disillusion a pretty young lady—even if her hair looked like something out of a Boris Karloff movie. Her loyalties had quickly switched, and by the time the Marriage Law was repealed in early 1980, she was talking about a divorce.

Snape had done his best to save their marriage, but once she came home from St. Mungo's with their newborn son (named Herman, somewhat after his mother), it was over. She packed her trunk and ran off with Black, leaving Snape with a lot of good memories and a whining infant who looked just like her, right down to the frizzy hair.

So, knowing that his talents did not include raising a child while still heartbroken over its mother, Snape had taken the baby to Dumbledore, who had promised to arrange an adoption with a good family.

Just over a year later, Black had been arrested and tossed into Azkaban, and who should come back to Snape but his ex-wife. He hadn't been in a charitable mood and had coldly turned her away. Rumors reached him later that she had had a nervous breakdown, but otherwise he hadn't heard from her again.

Snape blasted another rosebush, then, satisfied that the writer had been given ample opportunity to explain his history, went back to the castle.

Ron and Hermione, meanwhile, had gone straight to the hospital wing as soon as their classes were over.

"Do you think they can cure it?" Ron whispered. "I mean, I've seen some nasty potions messes in my day, but _damn_!"

Hermione shook her head. "I only hope it _was_ the potion," she replied. Something about Harry's hair bothered her.

They kept their vigil until about midnight, when Harry groaned and slowly woke up. He caught sight of his friends and sat up. "Please, tell me it was a dream," he pleaded. "I got hit in the head by a bludger, and everything else was a hallucination, right?"

Ron and Hermione traded worried looks. "Harry, you get hit by a bludger in a _different_ Ancalimë Erendis story," Hermione told him.

"Then I still look like—" Harry broke off and went green.

"Afraid so," Ron sighed. "Don't worry, though; Madame Pomfrey'll fix it up in no time."

"She can't," Harry said miserably. "This is how I'm supposed to look. It was an appearance charm before."

Ron and Hermione stared at him. "Harry," Ron said slowly, "what are you saying?"

Harry gulped. "Snape is my…my…father."

They gaped at him in horror. "Your _father_," Hermione breathed. "Does this mean he's going to cut off your hand?"

He shook his head. "He didn't seem to think so," he answered.

"Well, that's something at least," Ron said.

Hermione narrowed her eyes and set her jaw. "But it's still not good enough," she growled. "It's not right. I won't stand for it!" Without another word, she stood and stormed out of the hospital wing.

"Where's _she_ going?" Harry asked.

Ron shrugged. "The library, probably." He turned deadly serious. "Look, Harry, you know I have the greatest respect for you…"

Harry nodded. "Yeah."

"Well, I'm afraid it's over. I can't be friends with you anymore." Ron set his jaw. "How could I explain to my family that I'm on good terms with a Snape?" He stood to leave. "So, sorry, Harry, but it won't do. Have fun getting to know him—I'm sure he's a great guy, deep down." He, too, turned and left.

Harry stared after him, thoroughly floored. "What the hell did _I_ do?" he demanded.

"Dobby is sorry Harry Potter is not feeling well."

Harry turned to find the house elf perched on the chair Hermione had just vacated. "Dobby!"

The house elf's expression closed. "Or should Dobby say, Harry Snape?"

"You know what?" Harry burst out. "I never really liked you anyway, you ugly git!" He pulled out his wand and threw a hex at the house elf that quickly reduced him to a puddle of slime. "_Much_ better!" he sighed, then lay back down to sleep.

Hermione, meanwhile, ran back to Gryffindor, where she dug out her now-illegal Time-Turner from its hiding place. She tiptoed back out of the common room and through the corridors. It would be best to appear at the edge of the Forest, she thought, for there was less chance of her arrival being observed.

"Go back, Miss Granger!" a deranged voice cried, so close at hand that Hermione nearly brained herself on the wall scrambling backward. A thin, bug-eyed figure appeared before her, huge eyes filled with a demented desperation.

"Professor Trelawney!"

"Go back, you foolish girl, or what you most fear will come to pass!"

"Oh, right," Hermione said scornfully. "Like I haven't heard _that_ one before."

"The Time-Turner will break, you will be stranded, and all that you wish to prevent will happen!" Trelawney intoned.

Hermione arched an eyebrow. "And how would you know that?"

"It has happened before, it will happen again!" Trelawney's voice took on the note of doom. "If you do this, you will forever regret it. Do you want to end up like me?"

Hermione snorted. "I think the chances of my turning out like you are rather slim," she said acidly. "And as for the rest of it…lucky guess."

Trelawney glared at her. "I know what you think of me, my dear," she growled. "Better than you can know. But this time I'm telling the full, complete, known truth. And by now, some of the readers know or suspect why, which is painless enough for them, but for you it will be an agonizing lesson learned."

Hermione sighed, rolled her eyes, and drew her wand.

"So now you'll just hex me," Trelawney said piteously. "Well, go ahead; I did it once myself."

Not wishing to be outdone by the batty Divination teacher, Hermione chose a particularly nasty hex, then went on her way. The last words she heard in her own time were, "I knew you were going to pick that one."


	3. The Last ReSort

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Who said anything about Hermione being Trelawney? I'm out to prove that Obi-Wan, not Anakin, became Darth Vader! Oh, wait…that was my friends and me at tf.n. Never mind.

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Chapter 3: The Last Re-Sort

Hermione was nowhere to be found, and Trelawney, once put back together, was unable to say anything because she was overcome with hysterical tears. She was brought into the hospital wing just as Harry was going out, and the only person who came to meet him was Snape.

"Feeling better?" the Potions teacher asked.

"Worse, actually," Harry grumbled.

Snape nodded empathetically. "Dumbledore said he knows of a good group counselor we can talk to," he said.

Harry snorted. "So after everything I've gone through in the past day, the best I can look forward to now is group therapy."

Snape shrugged. "I hear it worked for the Evils. We can at least try it."

Harry shook his head. "I don't want group therapy," he muttered. "I want my friends back."

Snape was silent a moment, then shrugged again. "I can't give you your friends back," he said, "but I can see to it that you make some new friends."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

They had arrived at the doors to the Great Hall by now. Snape opened the door on the left and motioned for Harry to enter ahead of him. Harry did, but he halted almost immediately. There ahead of him, in front of the teacher's table, sat a familiar stool with the Sorting Hat on top of it.

"What's this?" Harry inquired.

"You're to be re-Sorted," Snape told him.

Harry frowned, puzzled. "_Why?!_"

"I don't know, really," Snape replied, also furrowing his brow. "That just seems to be something commonly done in stories like this."

Harry turned haunted eyes on his newly-revealed father. "You mean there are other stories like this?"

Snape caught Harry's eye and raised his eyebrows. "There are a lot of sick muddleheads out there who lay awake nights thinking up things like this," he sighed. "Are you ready to get it over with?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "It's just going to put me back in Gryffindor," he said. "You know that, right?"

"You don't read much fanfiction, do you?" Snape countered with a smirk.

"I'll put it on my to-do list," Harry muttered, then set off up the center aisle towards the Sorting Hat.

A hush fell over the student body at Harry's entrance, and every eye in the room followed him. Snape came about two steps behind him, and it was he, not McGonagall, who picked up the Sorting Hat to place it on his son's head. He had argued about it with Dumbledore, but the headmaster had insisted, saying that it was not in his hands but the narrator's.

The Hat perched on top of Harry's frizzy hair and pondered for a long time.

Come on, Harry thought. _You put me in Gryffindor before. Hurry up and do it again, you dumb, decrepit old thing._

I'm not dumb, the Hat told him testily. _I talk _and_ sing. And I really think I made a mistake before, so—_

Before Harry could make any further argument, the Hat shouted, "SLYTHERIN!"

This announcement was greeted with boos from all four tables. "We don't want him!" Draco Malfoy shouted, tossing a piece of bacon at him. Ron flashed two fingers, first at Malfoy, then at Harry.

Snape turned to the Slytherin table, glared at Malfoy, and pointedly cleared his throat. At that cue, all of the Slytherins cheered, and several glanced nervously at Malfoy, as if afraid that he had a contagious disease.

"Take your seat," Snape told Harry. In an undertone, he added, "And don't mind Malfoy; he's all talk."

"Right," Harry said through stiff lips. "I don't suppose you could tell me how to find the writer of this deplorable story?"

Snape shook his head. "If I knew where she was," he replied, "she wouldn't be alive to keep writing it."


	4. Bonfoy

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Chapter 4: Bonfoy

His first night in Slytherin House, Harry had, as he'd expected, quite the nasty culture-shock, but not at all in the way he'd thought it would be.

Snape had assigned Pansy Parkinson to be Harry's guide until he was adequately oriented. She led him to the common room at the end of the day, and Harry's first impression was that it was a bustling marketplace of activity. In the far corner hung a poster requesting contributions for war orphans in central Africa, and beside it sat a box filled with what looked to be second-hand clothing, and a money collection tin. Malfoy, Millicent Bolstrude, and a handful of others sat in a huddle nearby, knitting what looked to be sweaters and chatting about economic disaster in Southeast Asia. Another group of Slytherins were animatedly discussing house elves' rights as they folded pamphlets that Harry could tell, even from where he stood, were written in deplorable English.

There were Slytherins doing homework, it appeared; Crabbe and Goyle were frowning over pages of parchment covered with intricate patterns of numbers and exotic symbols. Harry frowned. "I didn't know you two were in Arithmancy—"

He was cut off by Pansy yanking on his collar and pulling him back. "I wouldn't talk to them just now if I were you," she advised. "Goyle, in particular, gets a little snippy when he's working on quantum mechanics."

"Quantum—?"

"And you do understand," Pansy continued blithely, "that if you tell anyone anything you see here, we'll have to kill you. Slytherin House _does_ have a reputation to maintain, after all."

Harry was feeling a mite faint and quite overwhelmed. "Does Sn—my dad know about this?"

Pansy smirked. "Well, he _was_ in Slytherin, you know," she reminded him.

"Right."

"Hey, Harry! Come join us!"

He turned to see Malfoy waving him over to the knitting group. Harry glanced at Pansy, who shrugged and smiled encouragingly. "Go for it," she urged. "Bonfoy's got the highest respect for you."

"_Bon_foy?"

"Oh, yeah." Pansy looked a little sheepish. "Reputation goes before all. _Malfoy_ sounds so much more…well, _Slytherin_, than Bonfoy does, wouldn't you say?"

Well, I suppose—"

"Oh, and that reminds me." Pansy drew her wand and pointed it at her own forehead. "_Finite glamourie._" Immediately, her stocky form and pug-face faded, replaced by a much prettier face and figure. "See?" She grinned. "Reputation first."

Harry shook his head. "_Un_believable." Even though the prospect frightened him a bit, he walked over to Malfoy—Bonfoy, he corrected himself. "Er, hello," he said tentatively.

"Welcome to Slytherin," Bonfoy replied cheerily. "Sorry about that row in the Great Hall—it was nothing personal, you know."

"Um, sure."

"Have a seat, join us." Bonfoy raised his eyebrows. "Do you knit?"

Harry shrugged helplessly. "No, I can't say that I do."

"No problem," Millicent told him. "You'll pick it up in no time if you have a mind."

"There's also a quilting group that meets on Tuesdays," one of the others put in. "How are you at needlepoint?"

"Er…not so good," Harry answered.

"Me, either," said Bonfoy. "So what _do_ you do?"

Harry furrowed his brow. "I sneak out at night and go snooping around quite a bit," he replied.

Millicent nodded solemnly. "Well, it's no harm to your reputation," she said thoughtfully. "But what sort of aspirations do you have?"

"Well…" Harry scratched his head—or tried to, anyway; his hair was very much in the way. "I know I'm supposed to defeat Voldemort someday."

The others nodded but didn't look impressed.

"But I must admit," Harry continued slowly, "my burning passion is to right the wrongs inflicted on the English language by America."

Bonfoy brightened. "Me, too!" he exclaimed. "Isn't it a scandal what they're calling the Philosopher's Stone over there?"

"And using _c'_s and _z'_s instead of _s_'s, and leaving out the _u_'s!" Harry added, then stopped. "Wow! I never knew we had that in common, Bonfoy!"

Bonfoy shrugged. "One of the drawbacks of reputation before all," he sighed.

Harry frowned thoughtfully. "I wonder what they talk about in the _other_ common rooms," he mused.

The others looked thoughtful, too.

Bonfoy glanced at the clock. "Well, it's about time for my bad deed for the day," he told Harry. "And I daresay you haven't got yours in yet. Do you still have your invisibility cloak?"

"Yeah."

Bonfoy grinned. "Then, at the suggestion of Ancalimë Erendis' beta-reader, let's go see what the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs are up to. And in the meantime," he added, his eyes gleaming, "we can start plans for a new society devoted to returning the English language to its proper roots."

"You've got yourself a deal," Harry said.

It was something of a trick fitting both of them under the cloak, not because the cloak itself was small but because Harry's hair now added about fifteen centimeters to his height. They managed, though, and departed for Ravenclaw Tower.

Three Ravenclaw girls came out of the library just as Harry and Bonfoy were passing, allowing the two Slytherins to follow them to their House. Outside the entrance, one of the Ravenclaws said, "Hash," and the door opened, allowing all five to go inside.

"What's that smell?" Harry whispered as the Ravenclaws dumped their bags in what looked like a trash bin and joined their Housemates in the common room.

Bonfoy looked stunned. "I think it's _wacky_!" he replied numbly.

The two Slytherins traded horrified looks, then passed into the Ravenclaw common room.

There was not a book in sight, but there were uncounted lager bottles, plenty of smoke, and piles of white powder on the tables. None of the Ravenclaws seemed particularly dynamic; rather, the majority of them were staring off into space, and some were giggling to themselves. One of the girls they had followed in slipped a sugar cube into her mouth, while another of them picked up a water pipe.

"I think we've seen enough," Harry murmured.

"No arguments here."

Hufflepuff was easily located, but following a Hufflepuff into the common room proved to be a little more troublesome. They succeeded in getting through the door (which responded favorably to the word "Patton"), but then they had to wait ten minutes while the Hufflepuff they had followed was thoroughly searched for weapons or contraband. Once cleared, he stowed his bag in a locker, then proceeded to the common room, Harry and Bonfoy on his heels.

"You're late, Corporal Abelmore," said a gruff female voice at the far end of the room. The room itself was filled with students standing, military-erect, in ranks.

"I apologize, sir," the Hufflepuff replied. "Professor McGonagall held me behind for questioning related to my hedgehog."

"Well, you damn well better have a note."

Abelmore strode forward, his back straight and his step measured, and handed a note to Hannah Abbott, the seventh year prefect. She eyed him sharply, then had a look at the parchment. "All right, you're clear," she growled. "But one more like this, and I'll have you scrubbing out the latrines with a toothbrush. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good!" Hannah barked. "Now get in line!"

Abelmore walked halfway back across the room and moved to fill in an empty spot in the ranks.

"Good," Hannah barked again. "Now listen up. Supreme Commander Sprout has just given the word that the time for our move has come. In three weeks, we will launch Operation: Mighty, Mighty Hufflepuff. Now, five years of preparation and reconnaissance have gone into this, and I'll be damned if one of you rats is going to muck it up, so beginning tonight, we're doing intensive, specialized training—**_And what the hell is it, Finch-Fletchly?!_**"

Justin Finch-Fletchly lowered his hand. "I was just wondering, sir, if you could explain for the benefit of the reader what Operation: Mighty, Mighty Hufflepuff is intended to accomplish. Sir."

Hannah glared at him. "Are the readers Hufflepuffs, Major?"

Justin shrugged. "Statistically speaking," he replied, "at least some of them should be."

"Then they already know the plan, and the rest don't need to!" Hannah snapped. "How in Merlin's name did you get to be an officer? If you want to act like a fucking enlisted man, I'll treat you like one! You're on potato-peeling duty for the rest of the month, and in the meantime, **_drop and give me two hundred and fifty!_**"

"Let's get the hell out of here," Bonfoy breathed.

"No kidding!"

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: I must confess (no, I'm Protestant, but thanks for asking), I never actually thought about what Snape would do to me on account of this story. If he does manage to hunt me down, I think he'd actually have far more to say to me about the damage done to him in "The Selkirk Grace", and this might be the story that gets me off on a mitigating-circumstances plea. So really, if you run into Snape, send him my way; I'd love to hear what he thinks.


	5. The Brainiac Gene

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Chapter 5: The Brainiac Gene

Harry easily settled into the routine of Slytherin House within a few weeks. Millicent taught him to knit, and he and Bonfoy started up the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to English and the Anti-American Dialect League. Other parts of his life improved, as well; Trelawney was forced to seek psychiatric help, and Harry and Snape's group therapy went surprisingly well. Each was able to talk out his cold pricklies and replace them with warm fuzzies, which drastically improved their father-son relationship. Trelawney's therapy seemed to be doing _something_—whether good or bad was anyone's guess—because now every time she saw either of the Snapes, she burst into tears.

Slytherin played Hufflepuff at quidditch and ran them into the ground, and the next time Harry saw Derek Abelmore, the Hufflepuff captain was scrubbing the boys' bathroom with a toothbrush.

It was all going so well that Harry ought to have known that the writer was planning to put a snag in things by tossing in a plot complication.

The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to English was having its first budget meeting when alarms sounded throughout the school. Bonfoy stopped short in the middle of his proposal for exportation of the letter _u_ and went deathly pale.

"Death Eaters," he said.

Crabbe was on his feet instantly. "I'll load the ion cannon!"

"Are you crazy?" Millicent cried anxiously. "You and Goyle are still working out the bugs in it—you told me it was your prototype!"

"If the school's going down, we're taking the buggers with us!" Crabbe roared. "C'mon, Goyle. **_Death and glory!"_**

"**_Death and glory!_**" echoed Goyle, and the two of them charged off waving their fists in the air.

"Right." Bonfoy looked quickly around. "Millicent, Pansy, get the bandages and medicine ready. There's sure to be wounded. Anderkoil, take a head count. Be sure everyone's accounted for. Everyone else, back to your rooms. It'll make Anderkoil's job easier. Let's move, people!"

Organized chaos broke out as everyone did as they were told. Harry was most of the way across the common room when Snape entered. "Harry!" he called.

Harry turned. "Yeah, Dad?"

"Come with me."

He frowned in confusion, but if there was one thing counseling had taught him, it was that he could trust his father. Without question, therefore, he followed Snape out of the common room.

"There's something I haven't told you yet," Snape whispered urgently as they hurried down the corridor. "You inherited something from your mother—something that can help—"

"Well, well, well," a high voice interrupted. "If it isn't Severus Snape and his darling son Herman."

"Harry," Snape corrected through his teeth.

"Whatever." Out of the shadows stepped a well-remembered form. "Remember me, Harry?" Voldemort asked.

"The writer just said I did, you prat," Harry replied, trying not to panic.

"Don't be afraid to panic," Snape advised.

"I don't remember giving _you_ permission to speak," Voldemort hissed, then raised his wand. "_Stupefy!"_

Snape dropped, stunned.

"Dad!" Harry called, but of course Snape didn't reply.

Voldemort smiled coldly. "And now Harry Snape," he said, turning his wand on Harry, "you will die."

__

"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, then suddenly realized that he was still talking even as he caught Voldemort's wand. The Dark Lord was staring at him, but Harry could neither stop talking nor quite understand whence came the words pouring out of his mouth. He understood it perfectly—it was directly out of one of Goyle's books:

"…Since a molecule that has a rotational spectrum also has an electric dipole moment, an electric field will cause an interaction. Known as the Stark effect, the application of the field causes the 2J1 degenerate rotational energy levels to be split into 2J1 lines…"

Voldemort did not appear to understand it as well as Harry did, though; in fact, he looked a touch green. Sensing that his words had something to do with it, Harry kept going and even raised his voice in volume:

"…and multiplet structure is observed for all lines with J greater than 0. This allows J values to be assigned to particular observed spectral lines…"

Voldemort fell back against the wall. "Please," he begged. "Stop! My ears are burning!"

Indeed, there was smoke pouring from the Dark Lord's ears. Harry felt his eyes widen, and he tripled his volume and sped up his words:

"…since the lowest frequency line observed need not be the one for J=0. Since the number of Stark components depends on J, unambiguous assignments can be made…"

He kept going until he came to the end of the Stark effect, then he moved on to Schrödinger's wave equation.

Harry was halted halfway through this recitation by a loud, messy explosion. When the smoke cleared, Voldemort's body, minus the head and shoulders, lay on the floor, and the rest of him was splattered everywhere else.

Harry stooped over the body and checked for a pulse, but there was none.

"He's dead, Dad!" he shouted. "Voldemort's dead!"

Snape made no reply, and Harry remembered abruptly that his father was unconscious. He hastily revived Snape, and the Potions master sat up in the midst of the mess.

"You did it, Harry!" he said with a grin. "You did it!"

"I started rattling off quantum mechanics," Harry explained excitedly. "I don't know how—"

"It was the Brainiac Gene kicking in," Snape told him. "Your mother had it, too. Anytime she panicked, she started spouting the most complicated things stored in her brain until she calmed down again. If you didn't fall asleep or clap your hands over your ears fast enough, it overwhelmed you until your head exploded." He leaned in confidingly. "We went through three clergymen at our wedding before we figured that one out."

Harry grinned. "So Voldemort's really gone, then?"

"He most certainly is," Snape answered. "I feel like celebrating. Do you?"

Harry nodded.

"Good. We'll get cleaned up, and I'll take you to Fortescue's."

****

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many thanks to my writing collaborator Snarky Sneak for the use of her P-Chem book for the Brainiac Gene spew in this chapter and for the proper spelling of _Schrödinger_.


	6. Hermione's Return

****

Chapter 6: Hermione's Return

The celebrations at Hogwarts went on for days, and Dumbledore was so thrilled that he canceled finals—surprise, surprise. He might as well have canceled the last fortnight of classes, too, because no one learned anything except how to party with the best of them. The teachers had hour-long parties, then dismissed students to move on to the next party.

The last Hogsmeade Saturday of the term, Harry and Snape sat in the Three Broomsticks, talking and laughing over mugs of butterbeer, when a timid shadow crossed their table. They looked up to find a woman with frizzed hair who appeared to be about Snape's age. Harry thought she looked somehow familiar, but Snape obviously recognized her; he paled and went very still.

"H-hello," the woman managed, and Harry at least knew her voice.

"Professor Trelawney?" he said. "Is that _you_?"

Snape stared at him as if he was crazy, but the woman nodded. "That's the name I've been using," she admitted. Harry saw tears forming in her hazel eyes, which looked impossibly small without her glasses.

"You've been…at the school…this whole time?" Snape breathed. "And I never knew…"

"I'll bet the reader did," Harry grumbled, thinking evil thoughts about fanfiction in general.

"I couldn't bear to be away from you," Trelawney said earnestly, ignoring Harry. "But I knew you wouldn't have me back. And why should you?" She looked down. "I've been a terrible fool. It's taken weeks of sessions with Dr. Phil for me to see that, but it's true. I can admit it now, and move on."

Harry blinked rapidly and looked from one to the other. "Dad, you're not saying this is…Mum?"

Snape swallowed very hard, but nodded. "Harry, this is your mother," he answered. "Hermione Snape."

"_Hermione?!_" Harry stared at her, but he saw that, if one ignored about two decades' worth of age, worries, and all-out battiness, she looked exactly like the friend who had gone missing two months before.

"I'm afraid so," she said. "Not at all what you expected, is it?" She sighed. "Well, it's not your fault; you were in the hospital wing during Chapter 2, so you missed the vital clues."

Harry had learned enough about Snape's past in their family counseling sessions to know that this was probably going to be an unpleasant reunion. He gulped and looked from one to the other again, waiting for someone to speak and all Hell to break loose.

"So," Snape began, after an awkward silence. "Do you want to come home?"

Hermione looked up quickly, her face alight. "Really?"

Snape looked to Harry, who nodded energetically. "Really," he affirmed. "It's a time for new beginnings, after all."

Hermione smiled, then reached over and hugged both of them. "I'm just so happy I could _explode_!" she squealed.

Her words jogged a memory in Harry's mind. "That reminds me," he said. "Dad, why did Voldemort call me Herman?"

Snape smiled wanly. "Not one of my brighter ideas," he muttered. "I wanted to name you after your mother, so that was the name on your birth certificate. I like the name the Potters gave you better, though, so if you don't mind, we'll just leave it at Harry."

"I don't mind," Harry replied, and because the writer had no intention of plugging the plot hole just exposed by the conversation, he didn't ask how the hell Voldemort had known the original name of Snape's son.

They left the Three Broomsticks arm in arm, singing in perfect three-part harmony:

Together at last.  
Together forever.  
We're tying a knot  
That no one can sever.  
I don't need sunshine now  
To turn my skies to blue.  
I don't need anyone but you!

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many apologies to all of you out there who, like me, hate the musical _Annie._ I couldn't find a more appropriate cheesy song to close with. My beta-reader approved; my writing collaborator may well hunt me down and kill me. Oh, well!

**PS** The story continues in "The Dark Badger Is Rising", which is now posting. **AE**


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